It Ain't Me Babe
by Emma-Bishop
Summary: Claire seeks vengeance. Topher seeks benediction. Neither is satisfied. Written before Season 2, modified to take into account events in “Vows”. Not canon compliant.


**I**

Every sweet memory in Claire's life has been tainted by association. She sees no problem exacting vengeance. Topher has been working long days the past couple months. He's always knackered by the end of them. Sneaking into his server/bedroom is easy enough.

***

She didn't mean to be here- doing this- seducing Topher Brink had not been part of her grand Machiavellian plan.

But.

The but is key. Crucial.

But,

kissing him is what she has been wanting for years. Funny that she only realizes it now. It doesn't matter that those years, those memories are constructs. Her body is singing and her heart in crescendo with it. He's a right bastard, asshole, sociopath, child playing with nuclear warheads but he is the one she needs right now. For now at least he is her other half. Creator and created, Pygmalion and Galatea, Frankenstein and his monster. The least he can do is let them be one, be whole.

This is the only power she has.

She's not sure she even needs him to fuck her- she's quivering so hard at the contact already.

He tries to shoves her off his lap again. She clutches his shoulder, digs her blunt nails in. He bites her lip in surprise, where the scar splits it. She bites back. He shoves her again. This time he finds purchase and pushes her to the other side of the cot. She snarls in protest and is about to leap on him when he croaks out a word.

"Treatment"

She bursts into laughter. Gales. Uncontrollable. Also, relief when she feels no need to obey. She's laughing so hard that she doesn't register the next words before the programming takes over.

" Alex, it's Chris. You need a treatment."

**II**

Topher's day started out bad and stayed that way. They were out of Bawls _and_ Red Bull on a day when the schedule wouldn't allow for Ivy making a grocery trip. He ended up making due with an old half bottle of coke found wedged in the back of the fridge. It had been flat and tasted like keys.

The imprints had been one after another and pretty standard stuff. Perfect dates, soup kitchen volunteers, bodyguards, babysitters. The printer got temperamental and stained his hands blue while he fixed it. Boyd didn't stop by to pretend to chat and to ask about Echo. Paul had his daily fit of moral indignation and Topher had been too busy wiping Romeo to mock it.

All the sound and fury of the day had led him here, sitting in his server room cot contemplating whether he had enough energy to make it through a couple pages of the latest Neal Stephenson novel before sleeping. The consideration ceases to matter. She is here. In the doorway. In his server room. She_ never _comes in here, not even when she wants to chew him out, which is all the time lately. Come to think of it, the only good thing about the day was its Claire-attack free status. Here she is. That quirked smile is dangerous, Monty Python rabbit dangerous. Here she is.

***

She kisses him. With her whole body. Lips pressed hard against his, arms around his neck, lithe fingers tangled in his hair and she's working on slinging her legs around him. The fact that he's not responding does not deter her in the slightest.

She shoves his hand under her skirt, up her thigh and he can feel lace and wears a slip a lady-garment he thought was extinct but for aged librarians and Great Grandaunts. It's old-fashioned, sweet and elegant and so her he can't help but kiss her back. The world fragments into a few specific things her tongue entwined with his, her legs around his waist, the smell of gardenias, the need to eliminate any barrier to skin touching skin.

Wait.

Alex never wore slips. Or lace. Her underwear was all about space invaders and the blue screen of death.

This thought is enough.

Somehow he disentangles himself from Claire long enough to say "treatment. It doesn't work. Of course it doesn't work. So he uses his master key.

" Alex, it's Chris. You need a treatment."

***

She is lonely and that is no longer acceptable. The status is not quo. He sits for a long time trying to think of a remedy. The solution comes just before dawn. Of course. Simple. Elegant. More than a little painful. He makes her like Boyd instead.


End file.
